Football stadium collapse leaves one dead, 14 injured

The collapsed section of the stadium roof. The only bright side is that at least it was not full of football fans at the time.

A construction worker has been killed and 14 others injured when part of a football stadium roof they were working on collapsed in the Dutch city of Enschede.

The Grolsche Veste football stadium is home to top Dutch football side FC Twente. It was having renovation work done to expand its seating capacity in time for the new season starting on 1st August.

“A large part of the roof has collapsed. A substantial number of people got trapped and there is one dead victim as far as we know,” Enschede mayor Peter den Oudsten told reporters.

In a stunning piece of detective work the local police announced that the incident was probably related to construction work at the stadium.

A construction worker who witnessed the collapse said “We were at the third level and we were frightened. There was noise, everyone was running everywhere. We were working below the floor. There was panic, everyone was running away. Then we looked if there were injured people.”

Two of the injured were said to be serious condition and rescue workers were working through the rubble looking for any other trapped people.